Art gallery

From Candypedia
Art gallery
First appearanceCritical Hit, page 1
September 12, 2013
Related charactersMike, Paulo, Daisy, Sue, Amaya, David, Abbey

Art gallery is the editorial title for an unnamed public gallery that Sue, Paulo and the rest of their sophomore friend group visit in Critical Hit. Each student has to choose a work of art and write a research essay about it. The comic shows two storeys, with sculpture rooms on the free ground floor and a paid special exhibition of paintings upstairs.

Description

A wide view of the upstairs exhibition, with framed paintings, a partition wall and wooden flooring.[1]

The ground floor consists of connected rooms with pale cream walls, wooden floors and windows overlooking greenery.[2] Voices carry from one room to the next, as Sue reminds the boys.[3] A wooden staircase leads up to the special exhibition, with a suited employee taking tickets at its foot beside a wall sign reading “Post-Impressionist Illusions”.[4] Mike carries a tape-player audio guide that the chapter commentary implies was rented from the gallery.[5][6] Sue also mentions a main desk, though it is never shown.[7] A security guard checks on the group while looking at his phone, and a woman nearby is also talking on hers.[7] Several adults look around one of the painting rooms.[8]

A large green torus sculpture rests on its pedestal against a pale gallery wall, another patron’s legs visible beside it.[9]

Several ground-floor rooms contain sculptures. One piece is a chest-high cluster of sandy, hole-pocked oblong forms,[10] while another is a dark-green ring on a labelled pedestal.[11] A humanoid figure is displayed in a glass case.[12] One painting room also contains a person-height striped figure shaped like a Matryoshka doll.[8] Elsewhere, crossing a red line on the floor triggers an alarm.[13] A laptop beside an upholstered seat runs a program simulating euthanasia. When David uses it, the program ends with the words “You are now dead.”[14] Small white labels accompany the artworks on both floors,[2][12][15] though Paulo finds the ring sculpture’s plaque no help at all.[5]

The upstairs scenes are drawn in warmer orange-brown tones under ceiling track lighting, with no windows visible.[16][17] Framed paintings hang along the walls, and a freestanding partition divides the space.[16] One of the works is a large, completely black canvas mounted flush on a yellow wall. It is unframed, with a small label and text panel beside it.[18]

History

Sue drags David away from the mound sculpture as framed paintings line the gallery wall behind them.[19]

The class arrives with clipboards in Critical Hit, and each student is expected to choose a piece of art as the subject of a research essay.[2] David pretends to be a kaiju attacking the mound sculpture and nearly stomps on it.[10] The security guard soon asks whether he will have to remove the group.[7]

Paulo and David claim the green ring sculpture as the easiest essay ever, only to find that its plaque, in Paulo’s words, “tells me NOTHING!”[5] A tug-of-war over Mike’s tape-player audio guide sends it into the mound sculpture.[20][6] David then crosses the alarm line at the interactive installation[13] and “dies” in its euthanasia simulation, which Daisy finds fascinating.[14]

Mike, Sue, Amaya, Daisy and Abbey eventually pay to enter the special exhibition, leaving “the kids” behind on purpose.[4] David silently buys a ticket as well, leaving Paulo alone at the bottom of the stairs.[21] The ticket-taker stares him down, then juts his head toward Paulo and repeats “Tickets.”[22] From the landing above, Paulo hears Sue and Mike making fun of him.[22] He buys a ticket after all.

Upstairs, Paulo and Sue tear into each other in front of the paintings. Sue tells him he is so scatterbrained that nothing could hold his attention for long, then adds “Not even Lucy.”[23] She apologizes shortly afterward and admits that she does not really understand the art either, only that she wants to.[24] When Paulo challenges her to explain the completely black canvas, she cannot.[25] She leaves, and Paulo finally reads the pamphlet alone in front of the black canvas.[18]

Trivia

  • The gallery is never named in the comic. The closest thing to an on-panel name is David’s warning to Sue that “You gotta keep quiet in these art galleries!”[7]
  • Veronica’s commentary says the simulated-euthanasia installation was inspired by one she and Oliver saw at the Museum of Old and New Art, itself based on a real device briefly used in Australia.[14]
  • The painting Paulo picks apart during the argument is the same one Sue critiqued a page earlier. Veronica regrets that Sue’s head hid it from view, which made the connection much harder to spot than she intended.[26]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 16
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 3
  3. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 4
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 13
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 6
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 8
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 2
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 12
  9. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 5
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 1
  11. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 5
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 9
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 10
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 11
  15. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 17
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 16
  17. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 18
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 22
  19. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 1
  20. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 7
  21. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 14
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 15
  23. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 19
  24. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 20
  25. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 21
  26. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 18
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